Using Vacation Automatic Replies to Enhance Bulk Marketing Campaigns

ABSTRACT

Methods and systems may provide for identifying a first set of recipients associated with an away status. Additionally, the first set of recipients may be removed from a second set of recipients associated with a bulk communications campaign to obtain a third set of recipients, wherein a first message may be sent to the third set of recipients. In one example, it may be determined that the away status has ceased for one or more of the first set of recipients, wherein a second message may be sent to the one or more of the first set of recipients for which the away status has ceased. The second message may reference the away status. Methods and systems may also provide for a brokering system to enable the transfer of away status information between different collectors of away status information and senders of messages.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application is a continuation of U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 13/769,521 filed on Feb. 18, 2013.

BACKGROUND

Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to bulkcommunications campaigns. More particularly, embodiments relate to theuse of out-of-office and on-vacation information to enhance theeffectiveness of bulk communications campaigns.

Bulk communications campaigns may involve accumulating large lists oftarget recipients and sending messages to the target recipients in aneffort to spur economic activity with regard to a particular product orservice. It is not uncommon, however, for many targeted recipients to beout of the office or on-vacation when delivery of the emails isattempted. For example, existing email marketing solutions may simplyignore out-of-office automatic replies and continue to send emails torecipients who are away. As a result, a significant number of marketingcampaign emails may go unread until the targeted recipients return,wherein consumers who encounter many superfluous marketing emails uponreturning from vacation may become annoyed and might even be motivatedto opt out of future marketing campaigns. Moreover, the transmission ofthose unread emails may have a negative impact on the amount of timetaken to fulfill/complete the campaign, resource utilization and networkbandwidth (e.g., unnecessarily contributing to network congestion).

BRIEF SUMMARY

Embodiments may include a method involving the identification of a firstset of recipients associated with an away status. The method may alsoprovide for removing the first set of recipients from a second set ofrecipients associated with a bulk communications campaign to obtain athird set of recipients. A first message may be sent to the third set ofrecipients.

Embodiments may include a computer program product having a computerreadable storage medium and computer usable code stored on the computerreadable storage medium. If executed by a processor, the computer usablecode may cause a computer to identify a first set of recipientsassociated with an away status and remove the first set of recipientsfrom a second set of recipients associated with a bulk communicationscampaign to obtain a third set of recipients. The computer usable code,if executed, may also cause a computer to send a first message to thethird set of recipients.

Embodiments may include a computer program product having a computerreadable storage medium and computer usable code stored on the computerreadable storage medium. If executed by a processor, the computer usablecode may cause a computer to receive a first communication from a firstcollector of away status information, wherein the first communication isto include first cryptographic information and first away statusinformation. The computer usable code may also cause a computer topopulate a database with the first cryptographic information and thefirst away status information, and receive a second communication from asender of messages, wherein the second communication is to include arequest for away status information and second cryptographicinformation. In addition, the computer usable code may cause a computerto conduct a search of the database in response to the request, andtransmit a response to the sender of messages based on the search.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWINGS

The various advantages of the embodiments of the present invention willbecome apparent to one skilled in the art by reading the followingspecification and appended claims, and by referencing the followingdrawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an example of a scheme of operatingcommunications campaigns according to an embodiment;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an example of a communications campaignmanagement architecture according to an embodiment;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an example of a brokering systemarchitecture according to an embodiment;

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of an example of a method of operatingcommunications campaigns according to an embodiment;

FIG. 5 is a flowchart of an example of a method of brokering away statusinformation according to an embodiment; and

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of an example of a computing device accordingto an embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

As will be appreciated by one skilled in the art, aspects of the presentinvention may be embodied as a system, method or computer programproduct. Accordingly, aspects of the present invention may take the formof an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment(including firmware, resident software, micro-code, etc.) or anembodiment combining software and hardware aspects that may allgenerally be referred to herein as a “circuit,” “module” or “system.”Furthermore, aspects of the present invention may take the form of acomputer program product embodied in one or more computer readablemedium(s) having computer readable program code embodied thereon.

Any combination of one or more computer readable medium(s) may beutilized. The computer readable medium may be a computer readable signalmedium or a computer readable storage medium. A computer readablestorage medium may be, for example, but not limited to, an electronic,magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system,apparatus, or device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. Morespecific examples (a non-exhaustive list) of the computer readablestorage medium would include the following: an electrical connectionhaving one or more wires, a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, arandom access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasableprogrammable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory), an optical fiber,a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), an optical storagedevice, a magnetic storage device, or any suitable combination of theforegoing. In the context of this document, a computer readable storagemedium may be any tangible medium that can contain, or store a programfor use by or in connection with an instruction execution system,apparatus, or device.

A computer readable signal medium may include a propagated data signalwith computer readable program code embodied therein, for example, inbaseband or as part of a carrier wave. Such a propagated signal may takeany of a variety of forms, including, but not limited to,electro-magnetic, optical, or any suitable combination thereof. Acomputer readable signal medium may be any computer readable medium thatis not a computer readable storage medium and that can communicate,propagate, or transport a program for use by or in connection with aninstruction execution system, apparatus, or device.

Program code embodied on a computer readable medium may be transmittedusing any appropriate medium, including but not limited to wireless,wireline, optical fiber cable, RF, etc., or any suitable combination ofthe foregoing.

Computer program code for carrying out operations for aspects of thepresent invention may be written in any combination of one or moreprogramming languages, including an object oriented programming languagesuch as Java, Smalltalk, C++ or the like and conventional proceduralprogramming languages, such as the “C” programming language or similarprogramming languages. The program code may execute entirely on theuser's computer, partly on the user's computer, as a stand-alonesoftware package, partly on the user's computer and partly on a remotecomputer or entirely on the remote computer or server. In the latterscenario, the remote computer may be connected to the user's computerthrough any type of network, including a local area network (LAN) or awide area network (WAN), or the connection may be made to an externalcomputer (for example, through the Internet using an Internet ServiceProvider).

Aspects of the present invention are described below with reference toflowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus(systems) and computer program products according to embodiments of theinvention. It will be understood that each block of the flowchartillustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in theflowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented bycomputer program instructions. These computer program instructions maybe provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, specialpurpose computer, or other programmable data processing apparatus toproduce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via theprocessor of the computer or other programmable data processingapparatus, create means for implementing the functions/acts specified inthe flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.

These computer program instructions may also be stored in a computerreadable medium that can direct a computer, other programmable dataprocessing apparatus, or other devices to function in a particularmanner, such that the instructions stored in the computer readablemedium produce an article of manufacture including instructions whichimplement the function/act specified in the flowchart and/or blockdiagram block or blocks.

The computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer,other programmable data processing apparatus, or other devices to causea series of operational steps to be performed on the computer, otherprogrammable apparatus or other devices to produce a computerimplemented process such that the instructions which execute on thecomputer or other programmable apparatus provide processes forimplementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or blockdiagram block or blocks.

Referring now to FIG. 1, a scheme of operating communications (e.g.,marketing, advertising, educational, social networking, public safety,fundraising, political, etc.) campaigns is shown in which a plurality oftarget recipients 10 (10 a, 10 b) is partitioned into a set of awayparticipants 10 a and a set of available participants 10 b. The numberof target recipients 10 may be very large (e.g., 100,000 or morerecipients), depending upon the circumstances. In the illustratedexample, the available participants 10 b are included in an “original”communications campaign 12, wherein the away recipients 10 a areincluded in a “welcome back” communications campaign 14. As will bediscussed in greater detail, the away participants 10 a may beassociated with an “away status” such as an out-of-office status, anon-vacation status, etc., that is determined from automatic replies, webforms, user configuration settings, and so forth.

The original communications campaign 12 may involve advertising and/oroffering a product/service via targeted messages such as, for example,emails, text messages, instant messages, social media posts, web ads,mobile ads, postal mailings, faxes, voice messages (e.g., “robo calls”),and so forth, wherein the welcome back communications campaign 14 mightadvertise/offer those same products/services along with a personalizedacknowledgement of each recipient's away status. For example, a targetedmessage to a particular recipient in the welcome back campaign 14 may bedelayed until a configurable time period after the return of therecipient and modified to include an acknowledgement of the recipient'sformer unavailability and/or recent return (e.g., a reference to therecipient's away status). Delaying the communications messages until theaway recipients 10 a return may increase the likelihood of the messagesbeing read by the away recipients 10 a, reduce the likelihood of theaway recipients 10 a becoming annoyed by excessive and/or superfluousmessages, reduce campaign fulfillment time, optimize resourceutilization and reduce unnecessary network congestion.

The type of communication used to determine the away status may bedifferent from the type of communication used to conduct the campaign.Thus, the away status might be determined from one type of communication(e.g., email auto reply), whereas the recipients may be targeted viaanother type of communication (e.g., text message). The targeting may beimplemented by excluding recipients from the original communicationscampaign 12 and/or including recipients in the welcome back campaign 14.

FIG. 2 shows an architecture 16 that may be used to managecommunications campaigns. In general, the illustrated architecture 16provides for detecting, and then respecting, the implied wishes oftargeted recipients by examining the content of their automatic emailreplies. More particularly, a campaign management system 18 may select alist of recipients from a database, create personalized messages, andpass them to a sender 20. The sender 20 can be an email server (e.g., asimple mail transfer protocol/SMTP server) that sends the personalizedmessages to the recipients' respective mail servers 22 using, forexample, their email addresses. If a given email recipient has enabledan “out-of-office” or “vacation” auto responder, then their respectivemail server may automatically generate an “away” reply to the emailaddress designated by the sender 20 in the original message (e.g.,determined by the Reply-To, or From headers, or SMTP envelope-Fromvalue).

A bounce handler 24 may receive various inbound email messages includingaway automatic replies, wherein the bounce handler 24 may pass the emailheaders and the message body through format decoders (e.g., multipurposeInternet mail extension/MIME decoders) so that the headers and body canbe passed through a classifier to determine how to handle the inboundmessage. A sub-component of the classifier may be an away detector 26that applies various heuristic rules to determine if the message is anaway message. In some cases, one or more of the mail servers 22 canembed specific headers that explicitly or implicitly designate a messageas an away reply. If such a rule is matched, then the message may bemarked as an away message and passed to a date extractor 28.

If the header checks do not trigger an away message detection, then thetext of the body may also be examined. There are multiple approaches todetermining whether a message is an away message based on the body ofthe message. These approaches include applying a set of regularexpressions, using a Bayesian classifier, using a neural networkclassifier, and or other document classification techniques. Typically,these techniques may be supervised and trained on a corpus of emailsthat are known to be away messages along with a corpus of sample emailsthat are known to be bounce backs that are not away messages. Thesupervised classifiers may be effective when operating in multiplelanguages. Regular expressions may also be effective for multiplelanguages, but they may be more difficult to develop and maintain forbroad language support. In one example, only the first N words areexamined since the keywords that indicate an away reply may tend toappear at the beginning of a message.

For the regular expression approach, the regular expressions may betuned to search for words that are typically used in away responses.This approach may include taking into consideration phrases in multiplelanguages, matching against the original language and foregoingtranslation since phrasing may tend to be highly idiomatic. The presenceof month names, day names, and numeric date formats may also be includedin the regular expressions to help determine if a message is an awaymessage. Any message that is classified as an away message can be passedto the date extractor 28 for further processing. Some implementationsmay combine the away detector 26 and the date extractor 28.

The illustrated date extractor 28 finds and extracts dates that appearwithin the first N words of the message, wherein dates that are foundmay be converted into a normalized representation. If there are multipledates, then the highest value may be chosen as the end date. Moreover,dates may be compared to the current date and ignored if not within aconfigurable time in the future. Dates can also be extracted usingregular expressions for various date formats in various languages.Additionally, consideration may be applied to surrounding words thatprovide hints for which date is the return date. For example, appliedrules may process the phrase “leaving on 12/20 and returning on January4” and recognize that “ 12/20” is a start date to be ignored and“January 4” is an end date to be extracted as the relevant date. In thisregard, confidence may be determined by the fact that January 4 isgreater than 12/20, January 4 appears after 12/12, and January 4 ispreceded by the word “returning”. Indeed, more sophisticated naturallanguage processing (NLP) can also be applied.

For each message that is determined to be an away message, a record maybe added to a database 30, indicating that the corresponding recipientis away. If an end date was extracted with sufficient confidence, thenan end date can be added to the record. If no end date is determined,then that fact might be indicated in the record and an assumed returndate may be constructed based on a configurable value (e.g., two weeksfrom the current date).

The recipient may be determined by multiple possible approaches. Forexample, the “From” address is one option. Additionally, some campaignmanagement systems can embed recipient identification information inseveral places in the message header and body to help correlate themessage with a particular recipient in the campaign management system'sdatabase 30. When the campaign management system 18 executes asubsequent communications campaign, it may invoke exclusion logic 32 toremove any recipients that are determined to be away (e.g., remove theset of away recipients from the total set of target recipients). Theexclusion logic 32 may compare the specified launch date for thecampaign against the end date in any matching records for each matchingrecipient. If a recipient match is found and the end date is greaterthan the launch date (with a configurable +/− margin), then therecipient can be excluded from the campaign.

To execute “welcome back” campaigns that are designed to arrive in therecipients' inboxes shortly after their return, the campaign managementsystem 18 may run the same campaign logic periodically (e.g., daily) andconstruct a new list of applicable recipients each period. In this case,the campaign management system 18 may query the database 30 usingselection logic 34 to find all recipients whose end date is within theconfigurable period of time from the planned launch date. The selectionlogic 34 can ensure that the end date is within the specified period ofthe launch date and not merely that the launch date is greater than theend date. Such an approach ensures that a new batch will be selected ineach period and no recipients are selected twice (even if there is otherlogic to prevent selection in multiple waves). The selected list ofrecipients may be applied to further selection and segmentation logic(not shown) that is defined by the campaign itself. The final list maythen be used for the welcome back campaign.

Turning now to FIG. 3, an architecture 36 to broker the transfer of awaystatus information between different entities is shown. In thisvariation, users may deliberately or implicitly supply their away statusto different collector organizations such as collectors 38 (38 a-38 c).Such an indication may be supplied by a web form, a paper form that isthen used for data entry by the collector 38, or as a byproduct of anelectronic transaction such as booking a travel reservation (e.g., witha checkbox to “Reduce my email during my travel by anonymously sharingmy travel dates”). A special case of a users/collector pair is thearchitecture 16 (FIG. 2) described above where the away statusinformation is determined from away response automatic replies. In theillustrated example, the output of the database 30 (FIG. 2) correspondsto the output of one or more of the collectors 38. Another form of userpreference designation may be out-of-office or on-vacation configurationoptions found in many email systems. In such cases, one or more of thecollectors 38 may include an email system.

A collector 38 may be any organization or entity that in some fashion isable to determine the future “away” plans for a corresponding emailaddress or other form of contact. The collector 38 may use the collectedinformation locally (as already discussed), or it may transfer thatinformation to a centralized broker 40 that can allow multiple senders42 (42 a-42 c) to benefit from the information and respect therecipients' implied or explicit wishes. Such an approach may alsobenefit the recipients/users, since they can supply their informationonce, but all senders 42 that have subscribed to the broker service willrespect their wishes. Accordingly, recipients may achieve less emailclutter from all senders 42 to whom they subscribe and who alsoparticipate in the brokering service.

In order to protect the privacy of the recipients' contactinformation/identifiers (e.g., email addresses, phone numbers, faxnumbers, social media names and login names), when it is sent to thebroker, a cryptographic hash function may be applied to each contactidentifier before being sent to the broker 40. A property of thecryptographic hash function may be that it is not feasible to recoverthe contact identifier from the encrypted string. A further propertymight be that for a given hash function and contact identifier, theresulting encrypted string will always be the same. The broker 40 maymaintain a database of encrypted contact identifiers and metadata foreach such as away status, return date, date recorded, and correspondingcollector 38 (e.g., source). A sender 42 may function similar to thestandalone sender 20 (FIG. 2), already discussed. When used inconnection with a broker 40, the selection logic 34 (FIG. 2) andexclusion logic 32 (FIG. 2) can make a request to the broker 40 insteadof a local query to the database 30 (FIG. 2).

In order to determine whether a given contact identifier should besuppressed, the sender 42 may apply the cryptographic hash function tothe contact identifier to obtain cryptographic information and providethat cryptographic information to the broker 40. The broker 40 may thenlook up the address in the broker's database using the hashed address asa key. Since the hash is consistent, the broker 40 is able to conductthe lookup without needing to know the actual contact identifier. If thebroker 40 finds a match, it may return the matching cryptographicinformation and corresponding metadata for the supplied hashed address.

There are a number of variations for how a sender 42 can use the broker40 to determine how to treat a contact identifier. For example, hashedaddresses may be supplied singly or in batches to the broker 40, whichmay in turn look up the information and return the metadata for eachsupplied address. The return of the metadata could be done via a webservices call, file transfer, HTTP POST operation, HTTP GET operation orvarious other means. It may also be possible for the broker 40 to makeavailable the entire database so that the sender 42 could download thedatabase locally and then perform its own lookups. Another variation maybe for the sender 42 to provide an upload of all addresses in which itis interested in (e.g., with periodic incremental updates), thenwhenever the broker 40 receives an update from a collector 38 thatmatches a sender's subscriber list, the broker 40 can send a message tothe sender 42 so that the sender 42 may update its local database.Alternatively, the broker 40 could simply maintain a list of updates andprovide that list when a sender 42 makes a request for updates. Thesender 42 in this case may again receive the updates and apply them toits local database.

FIG. 4 shows a method of operating communications campaigns. Illustratedprocessing block 46 provides for identifying a set of recipientsassociated with a communications campaign. The recipients identified inblock 46 may therefore correspond to, for example, the plurality oftarget recipients 10 (FIG. 1), already discussed. A set of recipientsassociated with an away status may be identified at block 48, whereinthe recipients identified at block 48 might correspond to the set ofaway recipients 10 a (FIG. 1), already discussed. Block 50 may providefor removing the set of recipients associated with an away status (e.g.,first set of recipients) from the set of recipients associated with thecommunications campaign (e.g., second set of recipients) to obtain a setof remaining available recipients (e.g., third set of recipients). Thus,the set of remaining available recipients may correspond to the set ofavailable recipients 10 b (FIG. 1), already discussed. Illustrated block52 provides for sending a message to the set of remaining availablerecipients. The message may be part of an original communicationscampaign such as, for example, the original communications campaign 12(FIG. 1), already discussed.

The method 44 may also provide for determining that the away status hasceased for one or more of the recipients previously associated with anaway status, and sending a second message to the recipients for whichthe away status has ceased. The second message may reference the awaystatus or be otherwise tailored to inform the recipient that the senderis respecting the implied or express wishes of the recipient not to becontacted while out of the office or on-vacation.

FIG. 5 shows a method 54 of brokering away status information.Illustrated block 56 provides for receiving communications from aplurality of collectors of away status information. In one example, thecollectors as well as senders of messages may be enrolled into thebrokering system via a subscription process. The communications from thecollectors may include cryptographic information resulting from theapplication of a cryptographic hash function to contact identifierscorresponding to recipients of messages. Thus, block 56 might involvereceiving a first communication from a first collector such as, forexample, the collector 38 a (FIG. 3) and receiving a secondcommunication from a second collector such as, for example, thecollector 38 b (FIG. 3), wherein the first and second communicationsinclude first and second cryptographic information, respectively.

A database may be populated with away status information at block 58based on the communications from the collectors. In one example, thedatabase is populated with the cryptographic information as well as anymetadata describing the details of the away statuses (e.g., departuredate information, return date information). An away status request maybe received at block 60 from a sender of messages, wherein illustratedblock 62 conducts a search of a database in response to the request. Aresponse may be transmitted to the requesting sender based on the searchat block 64.

FIG. 6 shows a computing device 66 having a processor 68, mass storage70 (e.g., read only memory/ROM, optical disk, flash memory), a networkinterface 72, and system memory 74 (e.g., random access memory/RAM). Inthe illustrated example, the processor 68 is configured to execute logic76, wherein the logic 76 may implement one or more aspects of the method44 (FIG. 4) and/or the method 54 (FIG. 5), already discussed. Thus, thelogic 76 may enable the computing device 66 to function as a campaignmanagement system and/or brokering system, depending upon thecircumstances. The logic 76 may also be implemented as a softwareapplication that is distributed among many computers (e.g., local orremote). Thus, while a single computer could provide the functionalitydescribed herein, systems implementing these features can use manyinterconnected computers (e.g., for scalability as well as modularimplementation).

Techniques described herein may therefore provide for detecting and thenrespecting a recipient's implied wishes by examining the content oftheir automatic email replies. When the sending mailing system receivesan automatic reply, it may first examine the content of the reply todetermine if the reply is an away reply. If so, the message may befurther parsed to attempt to extract a return date for the recipient.This date may then be persisted in a database. When a subsequentcampaign is created, the list of candidate recipients may be compared tothe “away” database in conjunction with the planned launch date for thecampaign. If the launch date is before the recipient's return date (witha configurable margin), then the recipient may be suppressed for thecurrent campaign.

In another mode, a specific campaign can be constructed to targetrecipients within a configurable amount of time from their recordedreturn date. Such a campaign may typically be run daily, selecting therecipients who returned the previous day (with a configurable offset).The content of the message of such a campaign could reference the factthat the system acknowledged the recipient's implied desire not toreceive email during their time away.

A variation on this approach may be to allow each recipient toexplicitly control their preference to not be contacted during a periodof time. Therefore, instead of solely relying on reacting to automaticemail replies, the system could use a web form to allow a recipient toindicate a mail hold period. This form could be part of a “preferencecenter” or a part of an unsubscribe form. As part of the later, theexistence of this option may be enough for some recipients to simplystop being contacted for a period of time instead of unsubscribingaltogether.

Another variation may involve using one or more organizations to collectaway information and then with the recipients' permission, to syndicatethis information to bulk mailers who subscribe to the syndication feed.Example collector organizations might be the United States PostalService (USPS), corporate mail systems, third-party mail systems,airlines, hotels, and online travel agencies. A syndication service maybe the intermediary to securely collect the preferences (via acryptographic hash function) and to then provide the service to mailersto indicate if an address (again provided by a cryptographic hashfunction) should be suppressed. The collectors may provide such aservice as an added value feature.

Accordingly, fewer recipients may unsubscribe as a result of receivingmessages after indicating that they are away. Further, the risk of brandand relationship impairment may be reduced. Implementing such anapproach can also reduce the extra resource costs for sending messagesthat will be ignored and may reduce the data skew that results fromcontacting recipients that are not making an active decision to open amessage. For example, email open rates may be calculated based only onmessages that have been exposed to a person, under the techniquesdescribed herein. The ability to back off, create email silence (duringthe away period) and then contact a recipient with a personalizedmessage may demonstrate a respect for the recipient's implied wishes andcan help to build brand reputation, strengthen the dialog, and gain agreater impact from the “welcome back” message compared to the standardsteady-state stream of contacts.

The flowchart and block diagrams in the Figures illustrate thearchitecture, functionality, and operation of possible implementationsof systems, methods and computer program products according to variousembodiments of the present invention. In this regard, each block in theflowchart or block diagrams may represent a module, segment, or portionof code, which comprises one or more executable instructions forimplementing the specified logical function(s). It should also be notedthat, in some alternative implementations, the functions noted in theblock may occur out of the order noted in the figures. For example, twoblocks shown in succession may, in fact, be executed substantiallyconcurrently, or the blocks may sometimes be executed in the reverseorder, depending upon the functionality involved. It will also be notedthat each block of the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, andcombinations of blocks in the block diagrams and/or flowchartillustration, can be implemented by special purpose hardware-basedsystems that perform the specified functions or acts, or combinations ofspecial purpose hardware and computer instructions. In addition, theterms “first”, “second”, etc. may be used herein only to facilitatediscussion, and carry no particular temporal or chronologicalsignificance unless otherwise indicated.

Those skilled in the art will appreciate from the foregoing descriptionthat the broad techniques of the embodiments of the present inventioncan be implemented in a variety of forms. Therefore, while theembodiments of this invention have been described in connection withparticular examples thereof, the true scope of the embodiments of theinvention should not be so limited since other modifications will becomeapparent to the skilled practitioner upon a study of the drawings,specification, and following claims.

1-5. (canceled)
 6. A method comprising: identifying a first set ofrecipients associated with an away status; removing the first set ofrecipients from a second set of recipients associated with a bulkcommunications campaign to obtain a third set of recipients; and sendinga first message to the third set of recipients.
 7. The method of claim6, further including: determining that the away status has ceased forone or more of the first set of recipients; and sending a second messageto the one or more of the first set of recipients for which the awaystatus has ceased.
 8. The method of claim 7, wherein the second messagereferences the away status.
 9. The method of claim 6, further includingaccessing a brokering system to identify the first set of recipients.10. The method of claim 9, further including: applying a cryptographichash function to contact information corresponding to the second set ofrecipients to obtain first cryptographic information; submitting thefirst cryptographic information to the brokering system; and receiving aresponse from the brokering system, wherein the response includes awaystatus information, and wherein the first set of recipients areidentified based on the away status information.
 11. The method of claim10, wherein the contact information includes one or more of emailaddresses, phone numbers, fax numbers, social media names and loginnames.
 12. The method of claim 9, further including: receiving adatabase from the brokering system; and obtaining the first set ofrecipients from the database.
 13. The method of claim 6, furtherincluding processing one or more user communications to identify thefirst set of recipients.
 14. The method of claim 13, further including:applying a cryptographic hash function to contact informationcorresponding to the first set of recipients to obtain thirdcryptographic information; and sending the third cryptographicinformation and corresponding away status information to a brokeringsystem.
 15. The method of claim 6, wherein the away status is one ormore of an out-of-office status and an on-vacation status. 16-23.(canceled)